


Back From the Fairground

by Eliyes



Category: Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (TV)
Genre: Cooking, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Multi, Open Relationships, X-Men References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 09:12:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1105043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eliyes/pseuds/Eliyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While they make dinner, Bobby gives Peter some food for thought about love and relationships, not all of which Peter understands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back From the Fairground

**Author's Note:**

> This story originally posted on Livejournal January 31, 2008.

As soon as they walked into the house, the dog was jumping on them and barking excitedly.

"Ms. Lion, what's wrong?" Angelica asked with a laugh, bending over to pet her. "You'd think you hadn't seen us for days!" Ms. Lion just wriggled and whined.

"I know that whine," Bobby said sagely. "She needs to go for a walk."

"Why didn't Aunt May -- oh, wait, she had bridge tonight, didn't she?" Peter realized, looking at his watch. "She would have left more than an hour ago."

"All right, all right!" Angelica said to the still barking dog. "I'll take you for a walk right away!" She looked up at the boys. "You don't mind, do you?"

Bobby shook his head, and gestured to the kitchen.

"We can start dinner while you're gone," he suggested.

"Great! I'm starving!"

Peter helped Angelica hold Ms. Lion still long enough to put the leash on her, and then they were off. He sighed, watching Angelica jog away into the rosy twilight. Bobby patted his shoulder, grinning.

"Come on. We really have to start dinner, now, or she might try to flambé something out of impatience!"

They decided what to make -- fried fish and salad, since it was fast, with some reheated leftover casserole -- and got to work. They worked well together, in a comfortable silence. So Peter thought, until he realized he was humming the song from the haunted house, and Bobby was humming along with him. It wasn't long before they were both adding ridiculously fancy flourishes and sound effects, Bobby conducting an imaginary orchestra with the knife he'd been using on the tomatoes. Eventually they completely lost the tune and dissolved into laughter.

Bobby grinned down at the tomatoes.

"See? You had a good time."

"Yeah, I did," Peter admitted.

"Good," Bobby said firmly. "I'm glad you came."

"Thanks."

After a minute, Bobby sighed and asked, "What?"

"What?"

"You're frowning."

"Oh!" Peter shook his head. "No, I was just thinking."

"Thinking what?" Bobby finished making tomato wedges and scooped them into the salad bowl.

"Just -- I guess this isn't how I thought competing for a girl could be. It wasn't like this in high school." He gestured with the fork he was using to turn the fish, taking in the kitchen, the both of them making dinner, how well they got along.

Bobby sucked tomato juice off his fingers, shrugging.

"We're not competing."

"We're not?" Peter blinked at him, but Bobby wasn't looking at him anymore, his head bent as he cubed cheese.

"Not really, no."

"What would you call it?" Peter demanded, heart pounding. Had all that mysterious short hand between Bobby and Angelica earlier meant that she'd picked --?

"Sharing, I guess," Bobby said. "Why does it have to be a competition, anyway?"

"Why?" Peter echoed, thinking _sharing?_

"Yeah, why?" Bobby met his eyes. "We both like Angelica, and she likes us -- she's happy with us. We want her to be happy. So where's the need to compete?"

Peter stared at him, and Bobby stared back. It -- made a weird kind of sense, but Peter wanted to argue. He just wasn't sure how. _That's not how it works_ wouldn't cut it, because Bobby was right: if they were happy, wasn't it already working? And _that's not normal_ didn't really apply to three college students with secret powers and superhero alter egos. None of them could claim to be normal, not by most people's standards. Going to that school for mutants probably gave them a little looser definition of "normal" than Peter was used to, anyway.

"The fish is gonna burn," Bobby said, and Peter looked down, turning it over quickly while Bobby went back to the cheese.

"Is that what you meant, earlier, about the tricycle?" he asked.

"Kinda, yeah." Bobby took a deep breath. "And about Warren and Scott and Jean. We went to school with them, and _they_ competed. Warren and Scott could get pretty intense about it, and sometimes it really ticked Jean off. 'Girls aren't prizes to be won,' she said. You and me, we're not like that. We're competitive about some stuff, sure, but the same way we're competitive with Angelica, and mostly the same stuff. We're friends first, all of us, right?"

Peter thought about it, remembering the way he felt the first time he laid eyes on Angelica. He wasn't sure he could agree he'd wanted friendship first, but he saw what Bobby meant, so he nodded.

"So what's the problem?" Bobby asked, moving the salad to the table.

"I guess I never thought of a love triangle as something that... stayed. Status quo." He moved the fish onto a plate as Bobby checked the casserole.

"This is almost done. Man, where _is_ she?" Bobby wandered out to the hall. "Oh, man, Mrs. Hauser trapped her." Peter heard him open the door and call out, "Angel! Dinner's ready!" He got down plates and separated the fish between them, then took them to the table. Bobby came back into the kitchen while he was getting out utensils, so Peter threw him the oven mitts.

"The thing about triangles," Bobby said into the oven, getting the casserole, "is that they have three sides, and they all touch."

Before Peter could ask what that meant, Angelica breezed in, laughing and telling them that she was pretty sure Mrs. Hauser was trying to secure them as babysitters for her grandkids, due to visit next week. As they sat down to eat, he let himself get drawn in by her chatter and Bobby's teasing, and he thought maybe Bobby was right about things being okay like this. If he didn't have to worry about the other two deciding to become exclusive, then maybe he could be perfectly happy.

He began to relax again, and caught Bobby giving him a wink. Angelica glanced between the two of them, and then smiled dazzlingly.

Yeah, maybe this could work.


End file.
